Category: Grade 9

Fog blocking and hazing over the happenings on the outside,
we are barricaded and blind from being in our own higher worlds,
with no ways for us to hear pass the harsh winds,
that are quickly chewing them apart,
They are stuck in what is bubble gum, unable to imagine a future
as this is the place where we need to restart.

We are trapped in our self-made glass bubbles,
Safe, are we?
Yes, but with us being oblivious when having our heads curled to the ground,
The fact is that these bubbles are keeping us spellbound,
From realizing this organized chaos.
Chaos of people treating their fellows in such an inhumane way,
This treatment has had its overstay

In the naked light, we can see ten thousand people, maybe more
Drained to the core by this war of oppression, we had ignored
For way too long, its crazy how much we are in the wrong,
Still we are hypnotized by this cheery and strong birdsong,
We sing together to belong,
This is the future, let’s come along,
Please…unfreeze and break from our individual glass bubble
And escape these horrible toxins and overcome the rubble.

Mackenzie Clarke’s “Self-Made Bubbles is a free verse poem that touches on the theme of how there is oppression that still happening in this current age, but our society chooses to have a blind eye to this fact and ignore it when they see it. Her poem explores and goes into the inquiry question of “What motivates us in the face of despair and oppression?” but when addressing we could have the motivation but not also the drive or want to fix the problems of our society. The phrase, “This treatment has had its overstay” is an example of personification where she expresses her belief that we need to find the will to change and stop the oppression from happening. The use of the allusion “unable to imagine a future” hints on how it is hard for the people who are being oppressed to think or have the hope that a time where they won’t be a target of oppression. The symbolic title of “Self-Made Bubbles” shows that it not only society shielding us from the seeing information, however, we also put up figurative walls to be oblivious a not see the full story of what is happening. There is a line in the poem talking about a hypnotizing birdsong, this part contradicts as birdsongs are usually perceived as cheerful and happy things. However, the author is referring to how society sometimes masks the bad with a distraction and if we try to look pass it, it is going against the norm or society.

This blog post is relating to the bring your kid to work in November, where I got the chance to visit and spend a day at someone work.

Name of your host: Nicole Bourbonnais (Clarke)

Relation to me: Mother

Interview:

What is your job title? – Librarian at an elementary school level

What is your job description? – She teaches grade 1 to 5 for library and digitally literacy.

What are the duties and/or tasks you perform at your job? – The main duty is to allow teachers to have a prep by taking their class for library and digitally. There she teaches the kids about different aspects of technology like safe online and coding. Also when giving them the knowledge surrounding reading and books. Another task she has is to keep the library organized and neat for the school, by putting the books back after either the students or teachers took them out. She also helps the students choose books of their interest.

What qualifications do you have for this job in the following areas:

Training? When she wanted to become a teacher, she starting by going to university for education. After that, she got training by being a student teacher at a middle school in North Van.

Education? She got her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in education when going to university. She took a business degree as well.

Experience? She started teaching when she was in her mid-twenties and have been teaching ever since. So, she has about 20+ years of experience under her belt.

Skills and attributes (personal qualities)? My mom is very organized and puts a lot of time making the space she works too. She is patient, kind and also very caring for everyone she works with and teaches.

What are some of the things you like about your job? – The best thing she finds about her job is getting to share knowledge with the students and making a difference in their life. She also really likes being able to share the power of reading and helping kids discovered their love for it. One of thing she likes about her job is being able to work and help so many different kids.

What are some things you dislike about your job? – One thing she does not like about her job is spending too much time at work, and not having time to spend with her family.

Student reflections:

Give three reasons why you would like this job – I think that I would really enjoy this job for the ability to help shape the kids of the future. Another part of this job that I particularly like is being able to have the weekends, summers, and holidays off to spend with my loved ones. From listening to my mom, I know that the day would never be boring, so that would be interesting for me. My last reason is that I can constantly learn new things when also teaching.

Give three reasons why you would not like this job – I would need to put a lot of my time into grading and marking students work, well also making sure that I am being fair. The whole process of writing report cards seems to be way too long and tiresome as a whole. If I was not to understand something, I would not like to have to give stupid in front of the class of students.

Is this job for you? Why or why not? – For the longest time I wanted to be a teacher, as both my parents are, however at this point in my life I don’t have the want to be one. I think it is because I am not the best at being calm with a super large amount of people, let alone a bunch of children. I am also looking to have a bit different of a job to the majority of people in my family. However, maybe one day in the future I will be a teacher.

Explain the value of the TOKTW experience in relation to your ideas about your post-secondary plans – I think the best value of this TOKTW experience is that as a high school student do not have a solid plan for post-secondary. So being able to explore different opportunities for jobs is very important to me. Also having ways to try out jobs is a cool and another way of having a learning experience.

The different types of income are an hourly wage where the person working gets paid each hour for a certain amount of money. When someone gets paid commission is paid by the percentage of the amount of stuff they sell or people they get to buy. If you are getting paid in piecework it means that you get paid by an amount of money for each thing you make and produced in a day. Salary is when you get paid in a sum amount of money either each week, month, or year.

Hourly wage: Nurses get paid at an hourly rate, for the time that they work each day. Electricians also get paid at an hourly rate, so do machinists as well.

Commission: People who work in selling cars usually get paid by the percentage of how many cars they sell. Also, real estate sales agents get the majority of their pay from a commission, other people in sales sometimes will as well get paid by a commission of the stuff they sold.

Piecework: Someone who works in a clothing factory and they get paid a certain amount per time they make a piece of clothing. A worker in a field who gets paid each time they pick one blueberry. Another factory worker who gets paid each time they make a toy.

Salary: Teachers are a job that gets paid a salary, also lawyers get paid by salary. Accountants are another job that gets paid a salary.

I think that I would like to get paid a salary or hourly wage. I think salary is good as it is a set amount of money each time I get paid. As for hourly wage, then I have the chance to work more time and get paid by the time I put into the job.

The security of a forest
As I was going through several themes looking for an essay that would peak my interest, I found this essay about the way a forest could make this author feel safe. I think the initial reason that I wanted to write a blog log for this essay is that Pamela R. Lowe has a very powerful and metaphorical style of writing. A style of writing is very similar to the “The Book Thief”, the book I recently finished. I especially made the connection to the narrator, death from “The Book Thief” in the way they describe places from this quote; “Their calm was like a blanket on a sleeping child, a silent solace that quieted my heart and soothed my nerves. There, I found the strength to let go, forgive, surrender and finally become my true self — a beacon rather than a shadow, realizing that life was not a struggle, but a flow of rhythms and dances — complete and beautiful.” The author demonstrates her relationship between the forest and her father, in a truly enchanting manner with the way she manipulates her language throughout the essay. The exemplification of how she can be in so much peace when with nature is showing how a lot of people can find their inner peace in their safe places.

Hello! Erythrocytes here, however, my friends call me red blood cell. Considering that I am and come from a family of cellular segments of blood. As a small, round and biconcave cell, my mother tells me that I am the perfect form for my type of cell. On the playground, I am quite flexible and I like to use my flexibility a lot to get around different things. My teacher says I am great at adapting to the shape of a bell to pass through tinier blood vessels. Sometimes I get a bit sad when I see my friends with their nucleus because I don’t have one. I do have hemoglobin that connects to the oxygen when I am doing my job in the classroom. The classroom job that I have is to help the host by carrying the oxygen and carbon dioxide. I bring the oxygen to the different parts of the body when bring the carbon dioxide to get rid of. The students are a bit jealous of my job is very important. Last year, my parents and I went on a trip distributing oxygen throughout the body. I am a lucky cell to be able to go throughout the whole of the body, some cells aren’t able to go in different places. However, I think the best place to be is in a blood vessel, where my home is. In my opinion, I have a cool membrane as it is made of lipids and proteins. Lipids are common molecules that are found in other types of cell, but I still think my membrane is very amazing. Something weird has been happening, for a bit of time. I am seeing less and less of the same type of cell as I am. My mom stated that it could be the cause of a cut in our area. Although my friend tells me that it could be that our host has anemia. This means that there are the lack of cells like me and could be bad for the host to continue living right. He said that it can happen if there is a bad accident on our host. I having been wishing a lot that it is not the what my dad said because that means I could die.

The Making of the Cell Story:

When I was making the story for the cell that I received, I used questions to guide how my story was going to go. The questions that I had came up with to help were; Where can my cell be found in the body? What is the function of this cell? How does the cell appear? “Why is the cell in the body? What things would happen without this cell? One of the new digital tool that I used for this project was the search engine “Gale”. In the past, I have used the tool “Gale” however in this project, I was able to use more of the tools in provided in the program. I found that it was easier to use the highlight feature when looking for important information. One of the familiar digital tools that I used was using google as a search engine. My process for investigating a topic is to start with either google or one of the new search engine that are provided from the school. Then using my questioning skills to determine if the source I am using is trustworthy or not. After, I will take the important information and put it in to my own words. The thing in the whole process that I found to be the hardest, was probably the part when using “Gale” and trying to find something that was not over complicated to understand.

I like to think of myself as a determined person, however, I don’t particularly like the discomfort, that trying can have. So, the title “Discomfort” received my attention as I want to discover why someone was saying it could be good and important to be feeling. Daniel Libman, the author, of “Discomfort” reveals how he believes in discomfort, after completing a week-long bike ride in the Rocky Mountains. The author is insightful to the ways of how being uncomfortable can end up making the goal more rewarding. A connection that I have is when I am doing a triathlon and how I am usually quite sore and tried throughout. However, as I am finishing the race and passing over the finish line, all the discomfort makes me feel even more proud of my achievement. I believe that with the discomfort that you are feeling, the end product will be more rewarding.